Texas Rangers Blog

With Josh Hamilton out of the lineup, what starter do the Rangers miss most?

With the continuing rotation of off days falling on OF Josh Hamilton today, thought we’d look very unscientifically at who the Rangers seem to miss most when they are not in the lineup.

We looked at seven guys who could be labeled in some fashion “core” players and the team’s record with them and without them since the start of the World Series run in 2010. (Like, I said, very unscientific). It doesn’t account for when more than one of these players were out at the same time. But it’s at least interesting to see how the club has fared.

The Rangers are 210-152 (.580) since the start of 2010 entering Thursday’s game against Oakland. They are 120-80 (.600) since the start of 2011 (when Adrian Beltre and Mike Napoli joined the team). We take a look at the club’s record when each of the top seven doesn’t start since 2010 (2011 for Beltre and Napoli) and we rank them in order of highest winning percentage without the player to lowest.

The bottom line is that over the long haul, the Rangers survive, but don’t thrive, when any one of the players are out. More importantly, they don’t falter. But this only accounts for one player, not for multiples missing the same game:

So, if you buy into this (and while I think it says something, it doesn’t nearly say everything), Cruz should be the most replaceable Ranger in the starting lineup; Kinsler, the most irreplaceable. That may explain part of why the Rangers worked so hard to get a long-term deal with him before the season started.